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Please carry on all conversations without shouting, excessive ranting, or crudity. Profanity and personal attacks will not be tolerated. I am delighted to have you in my house - well, on my blog, anyway - and look forward to discussions. But please remember that we are all trying to carry on a civilized discussion. Your views are valuable. Please treat them that way. Thank you.

Mystery Publishers

Academy Chicago PublishersAn imprint of the Chicago Review Press. Features a number of interesting authors, most long out of print, plus some other odds and ends, including some horror stories by Conan Doyle.

Crippen & LandruCrippen & Landru publish mystery short story collections. Of particular interest is what they call "Lost Classics," a series of anthologies of mostly uncollected stories by authors who might be enjoyed by a new generation of readers.

Dean Street PressThis small British publisher has a great many classic crime books in its much broader catalog. They are bringing back many Golden Age classics by authors who deserve another chance at a new audience.

Felony & MayhemThis publisher specializes in classic mysteries, broadly defined, including newer mysteries that adhere to classic standards. They have just overhauled their website to make it much more informative and user-friendly.

Langtail PressA fairly new Print On Demand publisher specializing mostly in classic mysteries. The managing director, James Prichard is the great-grandson of Agatha Christie, and his lineage shows. Authors include John Dickson Carr, Ellery Queen, Anthony Berkeley, and Freeman Wills Crofts, among others. Many are also published as ebooks for the Amazon Kindle.

Locked Room InternationalA small press, specializing in very good English-language translations of (so far) mostly-French authors of locked room and impossible crime stories. They publish in Print-On-Demand and electronic editions.

Merion PressThe Merion Press is an independent publisher of out-of-print works that were originally published over 75 years ago, but are enduring even today.

MysteriousPress.comThe brainchild of editor/anthologist/author/bookstore-owner Otto Penzler, the Mysterious Press has recently returned to life and now works with Open Road Media as an electronic book publisher. It is already republishing the work of a lot of classic authors, with more books on the way.

Oconee Spirit PressA small, independent publisher committed to publishing "lively fiction, and provocative non-fiction." Most of their list covers early works by established authors writing traditional mysteries, such as Carolyn Hart and Margaret Maron.

Oleander PressThis small eclectic British publisher has begun publishing a series of classic British mystery novels, primarily from the Golden Age. The series is grouped into a section of their catalogue named "London Bound," as the books are set in London.

Ostara Publishing"Ostara Publishing re-issues titles that have unjustifiably become unavailable either through the ravages of time or the forces of publishing economics. We specialise in Crime and Thriller fiction titles and our range goes from the1920s through to the 21st century. We publish thematically and currently have six series available. All our titles are published in a 'trade paperback' format and printed to order."

Poisoned Pen PressBased in Scottsdale, Arizona, the Poisoned Pen Press publishes a fairly wide variety of mysteries. Some are reprints; many are new, by newer authors. Their website has a great deal of information about their books and authors.

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Disclosure: Amazon Associates

I am an Amazon Associate

That means that if you order anything from Amazon through a link from my site or the search box on my page, I get a small commission. As a result, I'd consider it a favor if you would consider making your purchases through my links. As always, though, if you have a local mystery book store, I encourage you to use them as your first choice. For anything else... Thank you.

July 2008

July 31, 2008

Not classic? Not a mystery? I'd argue that the seven-volume series is, indeed, a very large but classic mystery (obviously with very strong supernatural and fantasy elements) - it is quite largely a whodunit with plenty of legitimate clues scattered throughout the seven volumes, along with a myriad of very red herrings. It is about Harry's search for the truth. In that sense, it follows the pattern of Classic Mysteries.

What would you say if I told you there is a website with links to an enormous number of classic and Golden Age mysteries - all available in electronic editions for free?

I know. That's the same reaction I had. But I was wrong. Behold the Maywrite Library. Mary has collected links to an astonishing variety of eBooks. Some of them are straight text or HTM; others are linked to a wide variety of formats, including Amazon Kindle, Sony Reader and PDF.

I've already found a number of classic novels and stories that I have been meaning to read or re-read, and I'm busily downloading them to my reader. Mary says she's always looking for more such links and will welcome suggestions - so if she has missed any that you know about, please send them along. And be sure to say "Thanks" for this labor of love.

July 28, 2008

This week's podcast is a review of the anthology "Detection by Gaslight," edited by Douglas G. Greene. Subtitled "14 Victorian Detective Stories," it's an anthology of short stories, featuring both well-known detectives such as Sherlock Holmes and The Man in the Corner and far more obscure ones.

For me, the real joy here is in the obscure stories. Even the more popular authors are represented by lesser-known stories; the Sherlock Holmes story, for example, is "The Adventure of the Copper Beeches," which I believe is anthologized far less often than some of the more popular stories. There's a rather curious R. Austin Freeman story called "The Dead Hand," which is one of his inverted detective stories - we see the crime committed and the story itself revolves around the way in which detectives are able to find evidence against the criminal. There's a story by Rudyard Kipling, which is more supernatural than pure detective story. And so forth. It's an interesting - and very inexpensive - anthology; if you're not very familiar with some of Doyle's contemporaries and followers, this might be a very good book for your library.

July 26, 2008

From time to time, I plan to do some short reviews and post them here, rather than doing them as podcasts. I figure there are a pretty large number of books that aren't necessarily "classic" mysteries but which are still interesting enough to point out and recommend in shorter reviews. There are others which are classic but about which I am less than enthusiastic (grammatically correct, but sure sounds awkward), and which are worth a mention but not a full podcast.

Again, I'm quite open to suggestions. Please just leave them in the comments!

July 22, 2008

This week and next week, the podcast features anthologies of classic mystery short stories, both edited by Douglas G. Greene. I've done a few other shows with short stories edited by other authors such as Nick Rennison and Otto Penzler, not to mention stories about Sherlock Holmes and Father Brown.

I see that the publishing house of Crippen and Landru - marvelous name! - has a series of collections in their "Lost Classics" series. C&L specializes in short stories, and the Lost Classics series looks as if it could be a rich source of volumes for our discussions.

Short stories, of course, follow different rules from those which guide the full-scale mystery novel. Most authors will tell you it can be much harder to write a short story, because the writing must be so much tighter, the various elements more strictly controlled. And many of the great authors have written memorable short stories about their characters.

So I'm open to suggestion: shall I be on the lookout for more of these collections? Or do listeners/readers prefer me to concentrate on novels?

July 21, 2008

Our review this week on the podcast is of the 1999 anthology called "Classic Mystery Stories," edited by Douglas G. Greene. It's a Baker's Dozen of stories, starting with Edgar Allan Poe and coming up (down?) through H. C. Bailey in 1920.

Some of the authors will be very familiar to the mystery reader - Poe, obviously, and Wilkie Collins and Baroness Orczy. But there are others as well, such as Charles Dickens and Jack London, whom we may forget when we list mystery authors. It's a a good collection of highly enjoyable stories. You can listen to the podcast here.

July 14, 2008

Many years ago, as a teenager, I stumbled across a marvelous story called "Ancient Sorceries," by Algernon Blackwood. It is an eerie tale of the supernatural, about a man traveling by train through France who is warned not to get off the train in a particular town "because of sleep and because of the cats."

The story made a strong impression on me, and when I later found a mystery by Nicolas Freeling called "Because of the Cats" I read it eagerly - and found it quite rewarding. Yes, the Blackwood story (though not credited by name) played a significant role in Freeling's novel, a police procedural set in the Netherlands and featuring Inspector Piet Van Der Valk. For me, it was an excellent introduction to Freeling's novels.

Now, "Because of the Cats" has been reissued by Felony & Mayhem, and it's this week's featured review on the podcast. Please click on the link (at the bottom of the links list on the right side of this page) to hear the whole thing.

July 12, 2008

Looking back over more than a year of podcasts, I realize that while I have tried to be pretty broad in my definition of "classic," I may be missing out on some of the real classics.

I am talking about authors who are often forgotten these days - people who wrote in the "Golden Age" and before. Many of them were wildly popular in their day but have slipped into obscurity.

I'm going to try to dig out some of their books - hopefully some of those whose books are still available - and review them in the coming week. As always, I'd welcome your suggestions either by email or in the comments.

July 07, 2008

"Clutch of Constables" is one of Ngaio Marsh's best mysteries - and that is saying a great deal. While it does feature the work of her detective, Roderick Alleyn, the star of this book is Alleyn's wife, painter Agatha Troy.

Troy finds herself on a cruise boat, steaming along an English river - a trip she joins on impulse. As might be expected in a mystery, things begin to go wrong. Some of her fellow passengers may not be what they seem, and they appear to have very curious reactions to some of the remarks Troy makes. Soon, there is a murder. And Alleyn finds himself racing to his wife's rescue from a most peculiar voyage.

I'll be posting these mini-reviews here (as well as at LB's Rambles) each Monday, when a new podcast is published. Please feel free to use the comments here to discuss the book - preferably without spoilers. Thanks.

I have discovered the conveniences of an electronic reader - but I wish I had a different one. I have the Sony e-Book, which, I find, has a very limited selection of books available in its "native" language - at least limited when it comes to classic mysteries.

The Amazon Kindle, on the other hand, has a great many more vintage mysteries - from all of Sherlock Holmes and Father Brown to the likes of Edgar Wallace, Agatha Christie and Mary Roberts Rinehart - available in its format.